Final numbers are in. Rainfall totals for April. Moral of the story here is that 2/3 meteorological wet season has underperformed, after hopes to recovery. Nearly all sites listed recorded deficits for the month which only adds to the long term deficits. Locally some areas did see improvement but not large enough scale. Secondly the rainfalls were too infrequent, for the one day of rain there were easily stretches of a week of very dry fire conditions, coupled with a windy month.
DFW: 2.54"
Normal: 3.22"OKC: 1.59"
Normal: 3.60"KAUS (Austin official): 2.20"
Normal: 2.39"
San Antonio: 1.24"
Normal: 2.54"
Houston IAH: 1.99"
Normal: 3.95"
Monthly SOI finished with +20.01, very high for April probably top tier for the month. It is the most positive monthly SOI in over a decade (December 2011.) Monthly SOI has risen every month in 2022 indicative of a regrowing Nina.
Looking forward May is generally a very wet month in the southern plains. The plan is the same, we need to get more rain on a large scale than what is normal to cut into the deficits before the dry months hit in summer, the faucet usually shuts off by mid June. Frequency of rain is just as important as how much.
Seeing the data out of Lake Mead and Powell should remind us that our water sources are limited, and in a drought year we should all plan for water use reduction, it helps us long term should it transition to a hydrological drought. That hasn't happened yet but with fast population growth and very slow to get new water sources coming online, a prolonged drought of a few years is probably likely. The PDO isn't in the mode to flip, it would take a few El Ninos to do so just as it took a couple of Ninas to flip it from +.